Gilles Deleuze

[sparkinthedark]

Let's start with this beautiful lecture, by Manuel DeLanda

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqisvKSuA70

I found the bower bird thing very, very interesting. It makes me think of a parallel with human beings and the origins of art. And, somehow, this quote:

The desire to create continually is vulgar and betrays jealousy, envy, ambition. If one is something one really does not need to make anything—and yet one nonetheless does very much. There exists above the ‘productive’ man a yet higher species.
Nietzsche (§210, Human, All Too Human)

[Onasander]

The desire to create continually is vulgar and betrays jealousy, envy, ambition. If one is something one really does not need to make anything—and yet one nonetheless does very much. There exists above the ‘productive’ man a yet higher species.

I gotta say that is the most retarded philosophical statement I have every heard anyone try to say, ancient or modern, and has just caused my opinion of the man as a thinker to drop to epic lows. To live is to adapt, your emotions are reactive baggage you gotta carry and sometimes use, and on occasions of great unknowns take a ride with; however, this being said, I know all too well from my life they have little to do with in impetus of formation of invention. I was born creating- my earliest memories are me building and designing. I had no ambition outside the curiosity, no envy for I knew no one, and certainly no jealously for I knew not the world beyond my back yard. My kindergarten I would later go to was down the street. That motivation in me is the wellspring of my humanity- it is the point I come back to when I find myself with the need to reset, to go back to my roots, to reach closer to my humanity and touch others. I gave the gift of new potentials where none saw them before, I give assurances to the down heartened and the confused with the combination of things they never say. It is the one hat trick god gave me more of in my biology more over than anyone else I have met, and it is powered by altruism alone, for I have failed too many times to find meaning in it for solitary exploitation of gain.

Nietzsche got lost in a bad philosophy, and never came out. It's important to leave markers at every corner you turn so you can find your way out.

[sparkinthedark]

It's taken out of context. I've quoted it specifically to be read together with the lecture above.
Anyway, I've seen it before on this forum, very well discussed by AB.
Check it: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=100

[Enjolras]

The desire to create continually is vulgar and betrays jealousy, envy, ambition. If one is something one really does not need to make anything—and yet one nonetheless does very much. There exists above the ‘productive’ man a yet higher species.
Nietzsche (§210, Human, All Too Human)

Am I to understand “something” as substance? As in if I am already given there is no need to produce as I am fulfilled in advance?

Conversely this simulacrum of pre-given substance (of being someone) is maintained via identification with a specific set of relations; this identification, again, is not something which is pre-given – but is itself something that needs to be worked at.

Above the person who labours to conformity with a set of relations, whose arrangement is itself not given but has a history of its own, there is the person who labours to re-work* the “pre-given” set of relations.

If I am in the ballpark, the first line confuses me somewhat. I’ll have a stab.

“The desire to create continually is vulgar and betrays jealousy, envy, ambition.”

Those whom feel they have been slighted by the current “arrangement” feel compelled to reject and rebel for its own sake due to, perhaps, they fail to meet up to the par of the values of the status quo. As such their creation is occasioned from reaction and not a place of affirmation.

In fact I could envision the envious individual coming to hate the status quo via the (partial?) internalisation of the very values (s)he is kicking against, and then projecting that “inner conflict”. The topology of “inner/outer” here anything but absolute.

What do you think?


Enjolras.

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EDIT: *re-work - "creation" must be a re-work due to the fact that individuals are not self-grounded so are unable to conjure something to pull out of their arse.

Staying with the bodily metaphor, one can turn shit into gold (the alchemists trick) but this transformation must come about from the relation to stool itself and not from the philosophers stone or some other "external" (in itself and distanced) source.

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EDIT II:

The desire to create continually is vulgar

Reminds me of what you said in another thread about the "who" of the triumphant active forces who are in "control"i.e. the desire to create continuously is the result from being reactive. Little agency in the matter, whilst those more active souls get the privilege to choose when to intervene.


I've felt as if I've just vomited on a page.

[sparkinthedark]

EDIT: *re-work - "creation" must be a re-work due to the fact that individuals are not self-grounded so are unable to conjure something to pull out of their arse.
Staying with the bodily metaphor, one can turn shit into gold (the alchemists trick) but this transformation must come about from the stool itself and not from the philosophers stone or some other "external" (in itself and distanced) source.

Yes, creativity in an immanent sense.

Read AB's post, especially you, Onasander.

For the psychologist, a fable of creation (whether of the universe or a single idea) betrays jealousy and ambition. We ought to understand creativity in a purely immanent sense: not as diverging from being, but rather perceiving that creation functions as the origin of difference, and is not only concerned with temporary variations in dominant modes of consumption or production. The power of the originary impulse is such that it formulates even the second-order coordinations of coordination which all together frame the conditions of any potential change. This is why unrecognized difference is the very beginning of thought.

[Onasander]

Who is AB? Alex Baldwin?

[Carl G.]

I must admit, I would've also misunderstood this fragment if it wasn't for the explanation in AB's post.
Nietzsche did recommend his readers to read him slowly in the introduction to The Dawn.

[Onasander]

Okay, finally found out who 'AB' was, Antonio Bruni- who only as 17 posts, so forgive me for not immediately recognizing his name.

From his essay in the daybreak discussion: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=495

Nietzsche believes that morality is nothing but the obedience to customs, i.e. the traditional way of behaving (Daybreak 9). We obey morality because it commands from authority and not because it is useful. Thus freedom and custom for Nietzsche are antithetical terms at this stage of theorization: the individual is to sacrifice himself to morality, or face being “marked” as evil. Nietzsche argues that because of this, everything original and creative (free) has become demonized by the morality of custom. What is the relationship between the evil man or the “madman” who comes up against the law (which can be considered the reification of customs backed by the pressure of punishment)?

I will forgive the man for a few reasons for the above for a few reasons; because Du Picq died prior to Nietzsche becoming a philosopher (Nietzsche remotely had a hand in this in battle- very remotely), a man who wrote in French on a topic especially the French were/are unable to understand- the psychological-instinctive basis for relativistic morality; and also Nietzsche died prior to Pavlov. Plus, Europe had/has a deeply backwards system of civil law/made up medieval protestant values that just kinda appeared out of the blue, and not based on experience and streamlined via long tradition. Hell, if I was European, I'ld probably be scared and paranoid continuously too.

A new light shines forth on the overman from that article- he lacks the ability to discern the strategic enviroment- for that sense is dead to him, plays with it's vestigial phantom internally out of unknown motivations decided by himself alone: he paints plains where rocky mountains are, sees lush farmland where withered goats are, embarks on irrigating the cliffsides, marries his daughter to a goat, and not a attractive goat at that, and tells her to cheer up, it's all in her mind. Builds his house on the sands, and annexes the national guard firing range for his cattle to graze on without telling them before hand.

Yeah, these guys are gonna die out before they reach the age of reproduction, clearly have no concept of gut feeling or ability to discern motivations or emotions in others or self. Best of luck to these supertroopers, I've seen dogs smarter than they.

[Enjolras]

So then.... Deleuze via DeLanda.

Deleuze opens the domain of expression from the narrow confines of humanity. Inorganic non-life is not devoid of expression, animals are not qualitatively different from humanity from the view point of expression.

Geological expression takes the form of 3Dness, but as we move to DNA (and consequently life as we know it Jim) it detaches itself and forms a linier structure differentiating itself from geology.
The property of living life over inorganic forms is a greater degree of affectivity, of being excitable by living itself. The emergence of sensibility.

With this new affectivity expresses itself in new ways i.e. the territorial animal. Where inorganic imprints upon other inorganic sediment it merely leaves a trace, territorial animals leave their imprint in order to plot a territory, it forms a signature – it is “theirs”.

A dividing line is drawn between internal and external which is not imposed from “above” but results instead from an infolding of the “out” forming an interiority. What qualifies an imprint as a signature, is that they are internally mediated, originating from the “internal” to the “external” (the interior itself being a mere difference in speed, appearing “in” the “out”).

Example. Three types of Bower Bird.

1) One has luminous blue feathers, which are plucked to make an attractive nest to attract a mate.
2) Two has less luminous blue feathers, and is a dull brown colour. Not able to capitalize on the shinyness of the first bird he instead produces an elaborate nest in order to manufacture and express value for a mate.
3) Poor three has no luminous feathers. Instead finds blue shiny things in the “external” world in order to jazz up the even more elaborate nest to attract a mate.

Deleuze sees the above example as the migration of expression from the skin (the exposed edge of the internal) to the world at large. The significance of this transfer is a less incestuous mediation, and a greater potential for affectivity.


Enjolras.

[Carl G.]

Deleuze sees the above example as the migration of expression from the skin (the exposed edge of the internal) to the world at large. The significance of this transfer is a less incestuous mediation, and a greater potential for affectivity.

Yes, that was a nice lecture. I think I understand the parallel between the bower bird and our own artists. This too:

We ought to understand creativity in a purely immanent sense: not as diverging from being, but rather perceiving that creation functions as the origin of difference

In Anti-Oedipus or A Thousand Plateaux, Deleuze talks about certain things that could change philosophy. Any idea what this is about? I don't think I'll be ready for these books any time soon.